Clinic Ezell Surgical week / Weedeater

On Saturday of the previous weekend, we (Lisa, Kemmel and Sheri) headed to Clinica Ezell in Montellano to participate in a surgical week. We hated to give up the nice cool weather to wither in the sweltering heat of Montellano but providing a needed service for our wonderful patients makes it worth it. Luckily, this week was not too hot as the rain cooled some of the days down to the point we had to use a sheet and cover while sleeping! That does not happen much. To see picture of Clinica Ezell go to http://www.healthtalents.org/ and select the Clinic Ezell link.

Patients in pre-op, patiently waiting.


This is the recovery room. We can house 40-50 patients at one time.

Here are some of the nurses discussing a few patients or just enjoying talking.

The surgeries performed during the week were general surgeries such as hernia repairs (lots of hernia repairs) and smal cyst removals and GYN surgery to correct prolapsed uterus' and remove cysts or tumors. The week essentially begins on Sunday when patients arrive after church service for thie initial consult and we schedule some surgeries for Sunday afternoon. Sunday is always the longest day as it starts slow and we normally over shoot our abilities on what we can do before 7pm. However, the teams are great and flexible and it normally turns out great.

During the week, the surgeons and nurses do surgery on about 15-18 patients per day. In addition to the surgeons and the OR nurses we have a number of other people involved, such as pre-op nurses, post-op nurses and nurses aides, chaplains, translators, sterilization staff, and even a fix-it person. Each team that comes consists of about 30 - 40 north american volunteers from the US and/or Canada and 20-30 local guatemalan employees or contractors who come to help in nursing, cooking, cleaning, etc.

Lisa suited up and assisting with a GYN surgery with Dr. Elder.

Sterilization, a much needed and important role!

One of our first patients on Sunday was an elder lady in end stages of cervical cancer, so the day started out difficult, but we prayed with her and her family and she stated she was a christian and ready to meet her Lord.

Lisa and I stayed at the clinic through Monday and had to leave early Tuesday to take Lisa to a seminar she was to attend with her overseeing professor during her incorporation to the University of San Carlos for her medical license. On the way we ran across an accident where the helper of a bus lost control and fell off the top off the bus while in motion along with a basket he was trying to secure. We stopped to help and took him to the closest clinic where they would try to stablizie him some and send him in an ambulance to the closest hospital, about 1 hour away. This day was not a shining day for the healthcare system of Guatemala and we later learned that the man died and that some of our staff at Clinica Ezell actually knew him. We do not know the extent of his injuries other than they were pretty bad and he was unconscious from a head injury.

Of course, this was not a shining day for the bus system here either as they tend to take unnecessary risks which result in devasting results such as this.

We finished up the week by returning to Chichi on Wednesday for clinics on Thursday and Friday and then made the trek to Antigua to meet up with the group for our last supper and a relaxing weekend. This time it was a trek! The normal 2.5 hours to Antigua became 7 hours due to traffic related to the Guatemalan Independence day. We ran into a traffic jam in a large town called Chimaltenango and spent about 5 hours there inching along or just sitting. The traffic jam was a result of everyone cramming into made up lanes and then small fender benders and taking up lanes that would normally be for people coming from the opposite direction. It was messy!!

Our other recent excitement was the purchase of a weedeater to cut the weeds / grass at the clinic and to show Manuel and Tomas how to use it. Tomas was a natural as he works with a chain saw cutting trees into wood planks.

Have a wonderful week!